Former President Donald Trump enjoys primary victory at Mar-a-Lago.
Nikki Haley believes Republican voters still care about what she has to say.
And President Joe Biden heads into the general election without doing much at all, after becoming the first sitting president to lose a primary since Jimmy Carter in 1980.
The general election is underway, friends. It’s going to be a wild ride. And the Super Tuesday results reveal how all this will play out.
NOW IT’S TRUMP’S PARTY
Trump dominated the political landscape on Tuesday, winning everywhere except Vermont (pro tip for Green Mountain State delegates to the RNC: bring sturdy walking shoes and binoculars, because you’re going to sit in the nosebleed seats in Milwaukee.) .
“Success will bring unity to our country,” Trump announced from his base in Florida on Tuesday night.
At the very least, it has united the Republican Party.
The 45th president won 14 of 15 races, amassing a total of 995 delegates since the Iowa caucuses and putting him on track to cross the delegate threshold as soon as next week to secure the Republican nomination.
Tuesday night’s performance undoubtedly cemented their position, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t showing red warning signs for the favorite.
Trump’s main weakness continues to appear in counties with high concentrations of college-educated voters. In college towns and urban areas of Super Tuesday states, Republican voters went for Haley.
“Success will bring unity to our country,” Trump announced from his base in Florida on Tuesday night. At least he has united the Republican Party.
A third of Republican primary voters in Virginia, a quarter in North Carolina and 4 in 10 in Massachusetts disagree with Trump. And there is evidence that they never will be.
Still, Haley had no path to primary victory after Tuesday night, and on Wednesday morning, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador delivered her concession speech from her home state ( where she was defeated by Trump last month).
Haley, however, did not endorse Trump in her comments.
My answer…does it really matter?
Then Trump called her a ‘brain’ and Haley said Donald ‘wasn’t qualified to be president’, so would anyone be moved by an endorsement anyway?
THE MYTH OF THE ‘HALEY HOLDOUT’
A lot of breath is being wasted on what Trump plans to do to “win back” Haley voters in November.
But polls and exit polls taken at primary voting sites tell us that a large number of these voters are Democrats, left-wing independents, and “Never Trump” Republicans who voted for Biden in 2020.
In the Commonwealth of Virginia, 10 percent of the Republican electorate self-identified as Democrats.
Surprise, surprise…they voted overwhelmingly for Haley.
In the Commonwealth of Virginia, 10 percent of the Republican electorate self-identified as Democrats. Surprise, surprise…they voted overwhelmingly for Haley.
An exit poll in Virginia said Haley voters gave Biden a job approval rating of nearly 50 percent!
There are no republicans. These are not the Trump voters of 2020, who switched to Haley in 2024.
These are voters who are simply looking for any candidate other than Trump and have been doing so for quite some time. Haley is the current vessel of that group.
Trump won’t get most of them back and he may not need to…
THE NEW MULTIRACIAL GOP
The American political landscape is changing rapidly and playing into Trump’s hands.
The Republican Party is transforming into a working-class party, as college-educated suburban voters flee to Democrats and non-college-educated Americans jump on Trump’s culturally conservative bandwagon.
In a New York Times/Siena poll, Trump won among Hispanic voters and attracted nearly a quarter of African-American voters. This new Republican coalition is multiracial.
Panic should be sweeping the Democratic Party headquarters.
For years, Democrats claimed the moral authority to fight for the middle class, for ordinary workers, and for the “common man” who were being crushed by special interests and evil corporations.
But Democrats are losing this backbone of America’s working class in droves, and this dynamic changes the framework that political pundits have used for decades to analyze this election.
An exit poll in Virginia said Haley voters gave Biden a job approval rating of nearly 50 percent! There are no republicans.
Working class Americans are not woke. They are not particularly progressive. And they don’t want to be told they’ll “take care of them” if they just shut up and accept some progressive cultural hell told in a language they don’t even recognize.
They also widely believe that Biden caused the inflation crisis that has had them living in anxiety and misery for three years.
If that doesn’t mean Biden’s aides take Prozacs in the White House, maybe this will…
WHO WON THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY IN AMERICAN SAMOA?
Businessman Jason Palmer defeated President Joe Biden to win American Samoa’s Democratic primary.
I’ve never heard of him either. The race had no consequences. But as a symbol, it is revealing.
President Joe Biden now joins Jimmy Carter as the only sitting president in modern memory to lose a primary election. It’s bad company. (Sorry, Jimmy.)
Surprisingly, the Democratic Party has not come to grips with the reality that Biden will not be impeached at the Democratic National Convention.
To paraphrase Hillary Clinton: Yes, Joe is old, but that’s all the Democrats have. Strange!
More than that, Biden’s job approval ratings are historically low and his party remains very unenthusiastic about his candidacy.
Most damning of all, polls show that most Americans think his policies have hurt them, not helped them personally.
President Joe Biden now joins Jimmy Carter as the only sitting president in modern memory to lose a primary election. It’s bad company. (Sorry, Jimmy.)
Businessman Jason Palmer (above) defeated President Joe Biden to win the American Samoa Democratic primary. I’ve never heard of him either.
Even in California on Tuesday night, an overwhelmingly liberal state, voters are lukewarm at best about Biden’s performance.
His job approval was about 50-50, a low score in a key Democratic stronghold. And the top issues in this predominantly left-wing electorate were the cost of living (36 percent), immigration (17 percent) and crime (15 percent).
Down the list? Climate change, the state of democracy in the United States and abortion.
Democrats believe they will come forward on these issues in November. It is a problem that his voters have other concerns.
It is undeniable that the so-called ‘Super Tuesday’ was more of a ‘Super Snooze Day’.
The results were largely expected: Trump edged out Haley, Biden faced small pockets of dissatisfaction ahead of Thursday night’s State of the Union address, and new evidence of a rapidly changing Republican Party was revealed, as the two parties They are heading towards a revenge.
But these issues will dominate the general election.
Right now, Trump appears to be riding a rising tide of political revolution and Biden risks being crushed by the rising wave.